SPECIAL FOCUS ON FAVOURITE GENRE OF OUR CINEMA!

Satyajit Ray's 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi' (1977) Saeed Jaffrey & Sanjeev Kumar!

This is the Birth Centenary year of..one of the greatest filmmakers of world cinema..our 'Bharatratna' and 'Oscar' honoured Satyajit Ray! 
So today's seventh picture is from he made film 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi'..
('The Chess Players'/1977).

Great Hindi writer..Munshi Premchand!

This was Ray's first Hindi/Urdu film which he produced with Suresh Jindal! For this he took the story of same name written by great Hindi author Munshi Premchand! Then Ray wrote screenplay for directing film on it. And assigned to Shama Zaidi & Javed Siddiqi for writing the dialogues according to its mahol & mannerism! After 'Teen Kanya' again Soumendu Roy came as cameraman for Ray in it! And Dulal Dutta did editing! Ray also composed music for this film!

It's story set during the luxurious period of last independently ruling Nawab.. Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh! In this, two noble Mirza Sajjad Ali and Mir Raushan Ali spends their days in playing chess only. They ignore their duties towards family & society..and plays shatranj endlessly!

Ray called superstar Amitabh Bachchan to give his voice as narrator for this film. (This was not that surprising because AB also did same job for Mrinal Sen's landmark film.. 'Bhuvan Shome' few years back).

Great filmmaker Satyajit Ray with great actors Sanjeev Kumar & Saeed Jaffrey

during shooting of his film 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi' (1977) in Lucknow!

Then Ray chose - two great actors.. Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey for the roles of Mirza & Mir. With them.. Shabana Azmi & Farida Jalal acted as their wives. And Amjad Khan did the role of Wajid Ali Shah! Apart from these main characters, Victor Banerjee acted as Madar-ud-Daula (Prime Minister) whereas great - Richard Attenborough came as British General & Tom Alter as Captain!

Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey superbly played these unique characters in Lucknavi nawabi andaz of living! This film won 'National Award'!

I still remember simbolic scene of this film..when Britishers were steping in Awadh, these two chess crazy men were in their game saying..
"Chal mere pyade bismillah..!"

- Manoj Kulkarni